Hard disk drives (HDD) include read and write transducers that reside within a slider, which flies over a recording media/disk. Increasing demand in data density requires that the read and write transducers fly closer to the media. Accordingly, the fly-height between the slider and disk is increasingly important as storage densities also increase.
A thermal fly-height control (TFC) device (e.g., heater element) can be properly disposed within a slider to contort the slider near the read and write elements, which lowers the fly-height for the read and write transducers. To verify the relative fly-height, the read-back signal's amplitude and a Wallace spacing loss relationship can be utilized. However, the read-back signal measurement does not provide an accurate fly-height during other modes of operation other than read mode. Moreover, a single resistor can be used for temperature sensing, but a single resistor can have difficulty in differentiating between but not limited to, the effects of (1) cooling effects from fly-height differences, (2) self-heating, (3) TFC heating, and/or (4) write-head heating.
The drawings referred to in this description should be understood as not being drawn to scale except if specifically noted.